


Take Me Anyway You Like

by sandyk



Category: Fringe
Genre: F/M, mental disability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:46:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4670648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place after Unleashed. Peter remembers everything from the age of 2 to yesterday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Title and quote from Sera Cahoone's song Take Me Anyway You Like. Not mine, no profit garnered. I've assumed here that Peter on both sides was sick a while as a child, since age 5 at least. Thanks to my friend who loves the Angelic Bathmat and PB for beta advice!

_Cause I'm already in your life  
So take me anyway you like_

 

Peter was going to die and he couldn't say he would have chosen this specific method. Dragged at gunpoint from the shitty hotel room, why did that hotel have to be his last place of residence? He would have wanted something classier or something even seedier. Mediocre and bland were awful descriptions of the last rooms you'd ever see. This room he was going to die in, it was a fucking cliche. An abandoned warehouse, his hands taped together around a pole, mouth taped shut, looking at weird stains on the concrete floor. The company sucked, too. 

Big Eddie and Michael had taken their turns beating the crap out of him. He'd had a brief hope that he'd get to live so he could pay them back when he'd said, pre-tape, "People know I'm here. FBI people."

"Exactly," Big Eddie had said. "And when they find you dead everyone will know and it will be a valuable lesson to anyone who tries to fuck me over again." He'd added a swift kick to the kidneys with that depressing comment.

So this was the end. He never thought he'd be thinking of Walter and hoping Walter would be okay. Olivia. He should have kissed her multiple times. Should have, would have, could have. 

Big Eddie leaned over, holding a syringe. "We know where you work now. Where you worked. And some of those people who don't like you were happy to provide a referral to other people who don't like you. So I don't know how this is going to kill you, but the guy from ZFT who gave it to us promised it would be painful and leave a gruesome corpse."

Peter struggled pointlessly, but Big Eddie was a man of action. He stabbed Peter in the neck with the syringe and Peter felt his brain explode before he felt nothing at all. 

x

 

"Explain to me why you did this," Broyles said, glaring at the both of them.

Charlie said, "Walter woke up and Peter was gone, at 4 am. He called Olivia. We checked the security footage and saw Peter being led away, gun to his back. Facial recognition tied the two men to Big Eddie."

"So we knew if we brought it back to the FBI, Sanford Harris would --"

"Prevent us from investigating the armed abduction of one of our own consultants?" Broyles looked skeptical.

"He was abducted by people in organized crime he owed money to," Olivia said. "I thought if Charlie and I could do it, without telling you, we could --"

Broyles sighed and Olivia stopped talking.

Charlie said, "We managed to track down the place he might have been taken to thanks to a friend of mine in Boston PD. We entered to find two men, clearly in the act of attempted murder."

"And killed both of them," Broyles said.

"They drew their guns on us, and we had announced ourselves," Olivia said. "Is someone upset we killed Big Eddie?"

"Actually yes," Broyles said. "I have heard from Sanford Harris. He wanted to know why you two ruined a two year joint operation between Boston PD and the FBI to take down an entire criminal organization. With Big Eddie and his lieutenant dead, apparently, all that intelligence is for naught."

"But Peter is alive," Olivia said.

Broyles said, "How is he?"

"Bad," Olivia said. She walked to the end of the hospital corridor, standing with Astrid as they looked in the hospital room. 

Astrid said, "They beat the crap out of him but he would have been back at work in a few days or a week or two. With some very colorful bruises. But the injection is the problem. The doctors don't know what it is. Walter is getting samples."

Olivia said, "What is it doing to Peter?"

"Walter says it's overloading his brain."

Walter dithered and stuttered and stared off into space in the middle of his sentences. Astrid managed to get him to explain the tests they'd done. Mostly. What Olivia understood was that there was so much activity happening in Peter's brain it would certainly cause brain damage if it hadn't already. 

Olivia said, "Walter, please, you have an idea, don't you?"

"I don't know," Walter said, crying. 

Olivia and Astrid bullied and cajoled Walter into trying to come up with something. Naturally, Walter's solution involved electric shocks and drugs. "Put the brain back on the right train tracks, cracker jack," he said.

Peter would have objected, Olivia was sure. He would have argued about dosages and testing and called at least something ridiculous and impossible. Astrid and Olivia nodded numbly and hooked up IVs. Peter was in a coma, but his face was creased with pain. He'd been given painkillers and it didn't seem to make a difference. Walter said Peter would be brain dead by the end of the week without treatment. 

They'd brought Peter from the hospital to the lab. "We brought him home," Astrid said quietly.

Walter had carefully shaved Peter's head so they could hook everything up. "He really does look awful," Walter said. "Okay, we may as well start."

Olivia watched the jagged ups and downs of Peter's brainwaves. It looked wrong. Then Walter and Astrid started injecting and shocking Peter. His brainwaves stopped, restarted, stopped, and slowly restarted at what Walter declared a much better rhythm. "It's a not a rhythm, technically, of course, it's more complex, I will draw you a diagram so you can really understand. You have to think of it like, well, a souffle."

Olivia nodded. She went and sat down by Peter. She took his hand. 

It was two days before Peter regained consciousness. He was back at the hospital now. His eyes were bloodshot and dull. "Olivia," he mumbled. 

"Yes," she said. 

He blinked rapidly. "So I lived."

"Yes," she said. "We were all very relieved. Walter, in particular."

"Let him rot," Peter said, his voice low.

"Peter?"

He rubbed his eyes and said, "Maybe just come back tomorrow."

x

Peter remembered everything. Everything he'd ever seen, heard, tasted, smelled, thought about, read, touched, experienced. Every breath, every fucking heartbeat seemed to trigger another wave of memories. Even the pain only slightly dulled by the drugs they had him on was a trigger for memories. They were constant, they came with smells, sensations, emotions. 

Walter, he thought. It was a nightmare to sort out when he could barely speak or sleep. His mother, on both sides. Two sides, two universes, the lake. 

He described it to the doctor as sensory overload, or whatever words he gritted out. The doctor tried some mix of beta blockers and SSRIs which actually worked, at least diminishing the cacophony to the point of a dull distraction. 

It took a week to find the right mix and dosage and then titrate down to see if they could find something he could live on. Peter looked at himself in the mirror, appalled at how bad he looked. He didn't even have enough hair to call it a buzzcut. It was stubble on his head. He was sickly pale and unbelievably haggard. The bruising to his face had started to heal, at least.

He'd had a buzzcut five times in his life. He'd pulled it off at least four times, maybe all five times. He swayed, the memories rushing up, knocking him off balance a little. But the drugs were really working and it was 100 times better than it had been. He had a three month supply in his bag, he'd paid as much of his portion of the hospital bill as he could. He was finally free of Big Eddie, he didn't want to get chased around the world by the hospital's collection agency. 

He went back and sat on his bed, tying his shoes, tightening his belt. Walter came in, so very chipper. Walter said, "I brought custard. I know you don't remember, son --"

"I remember everything, Walter. Everything. That's what they did to me, Walter." Walter's whole face fell. Peter got up and put the custard container on the bed. He didn't want a mess attracting the nurses.

Walter said, "Please, Peter. You have to understand, you were going to die. Your father had missed the cure, I had to make sure you didn't die. I meant to give it to you there --"

"Shut up," Peter said. His head hurt and he was swaying on his feet again. He had a lot of memories of Walter, of both Walters, and it was almost debilitating to try to concentrate around them and form words. Even with his medication. "You owe me this: don't tell anyone I'm leaving for 8 hours."

Walter nodded. "Do you think you might come back? Do you think --"

"I said be quiet," Peter said. Walter recoiled at his anger. 

Peter's next stop was home and after that, the lab. He emptied every place he'd hidden things, took what he wanted to keep for himself. He emptied every one of his accounts he thought the FBI could find. He emptied all of them, just in case. 

His last stop in Boston was Olivia's apartment. She opened the door and actually smiled at him, so happy. He almost felt like an asshole, but he hated Walter more than he cared about anything else. Nearly anything else. "Come in," Olivia said. 

"I have things to do," Peter said. "After this. I'm thinking of trying for a modeling contract because I look so great right now."

"You do not look great at all," she said. "But I'm glad to see you standing and talking."

Peter waved his hand over his head. "Brain damage," he said. 

She stopped smiling. "But you feel better now," she said. "Right?"

"I'll be fine," he lied. "But the thing is, it occured to me when I thought I was going to die, there is a really long list of things I should have done before dying and in the top 10 was not doing this." He touched her cheek and kissed her. 

He stopped the first second because the memories, every kiss ever in his life overwhelmed him. Olivia immediately moved in closer, kissing back. She must have thought he was hesitating. The memories receded and he held her waist. She said, "Are you sure you don't want to come in?"

"I am not sure at all," Peter said. "But I really do have something to do." He thought about staying. Forgive, try to forget, be a good man, stay with Olivia. "I have to go," he said. He kissed her again. He left in his rental car for New York City.

He had one place in New York City where he had a few things hidden. Once he had that, he packed his bag, returned the rental car, and went to LaGuardia. He was flying over the Atlantic four hours later. He destroyed his phone in the Heathrow men's room. He dropped his credentials in the letter he'd written to Charlie. 

Two months later, he was walking his favorite circuit of streets in Lagos when he saw Olivia. He smiled at her and blinked back the nausea that came from the rush of memories he had at seeing her. He drew out a cigarette and lit it, breathing in. 

Olivia said, "You wrote to Charlie and Astrid, not me?"

"I said goodbye to you in person," he said.

She wasn't smiling. She was in dark jeans and a grey t-shirt with one of those large backpacks, like she was a college girl hiking through Europe. Except this was Nigeria and Olivia had never had the chance to look that carefree. She said, "I needed to find you."

"I'm not coming back to Boston," Peter said.

Olivia sighed and looked down. Peter said, "But I am really glad to see you."

"Really?" She looked at him again and he could see she was exhausted. 

"How tired are you? Come home with me, I'll let you take the bed."

She said, "Okay," and smiled, weakly. He held out her hand and let him guide her through the streets.

xx

Olivia sighed. Peter looked tan, lean. He didn't exactly look good but she wasn't sure why she felt that way. She didn't like the beard. She didn't like the smoking. His hair had grown back though it was still shorter than she'd ever seen on him. She was walking without looking at anyone around them, without being aware. 

She squeezed his hand. 

She said, "Broyles didn't know. I assume you wondered if he did, since you wrote Charlie everything you knew. But he didn't. He knew Walter had something do with the first break, he knew about the alternate universes, but he didn't know Walter took you or anything about that. Nina gave him information, lied to him a number of times. He was appalled when Charlie told us what Walter did and angry at Nina. If you were wondering."

"I was," he said. "Thank you."

"Your information was very useful. Once Walter calmed down," she said, skimming over Walter's breakdown and how she still didn't know if they had done the right thing not putting him back in St. Claire's. "He remembered a lot more."

"Of course he did."

"He said, he assumed you would never forgive him so he tried to forget. But we know more about the other side and all sorts of things," Olivia said. 

Peter looked over his shoulder at her. He said, "What sort of things? About the cortexiphan trials?"

"Yes," she said. "There was this man, Nick Lane. I was linked to him from the tests. He was, uh, Walter called it a reverse empath. He made people feel what he felt. But in my dreams, it was horrible. I felt like I was the one killing them. Three people he killed with his feelings and I lived it all. So Walter and I and Charlie and Astrid flew down to Jacksonville."

Peter stopped walking and hugged her close to him. Just from her voice, Olivia thought. She must have had a pathetic expression on her face. He was wearing a blue t-shirt that felt impossibly soft against her cheek. His hand in her hair made her feel settled. She said, "Nick killed himself and six other people. We found out that someone is tracking down all these children from Jacksonville and Ohio and activating them."

"Like Jones tried to do with you," Peter said.

"It's probably Jones," Olivia said. "Or someone connected to him. Or someone who's read ZFT."

She pulled away from him. She said, "Walter's been very helpful."

"By starting the experiments in the first place, using children as his guinea pigs? He started all of this, Olivia." He took her hand and started walking again. She followed. 

"He loves you," she said. 

"He kidnapped me. He lied to me for months, made my mother lie to me, literally made me believe I had imagined my entire early childhood which I'm sure had absolutely no affect on my mental development, used me for his science, ignored me, belittled me, and then he went crazy," Peter said. She could hear the anger in his voice. It didn't have any fury in it, which scared her. He said, "He's an abusive asshole. I know he's more scared than scary these days but I never want to see him again."

"He's changed," Olivia said. 

"Yes, he has changed. That doesn't mean I have to forgive him or that that change makes anything easier for me," he said. "Fuck him."

"He's trying now to make up for things," she said. "I believe that."

"And I'm glad for you, I'm glad that makes a difference to you. It doesn't to me. I was 7 years old. For months, Walter and my mother told me everything I knew was wrong, that everything I remembered was wrong. He took me away from my parents and the actual place where I belonged," Peter said. "I don't want to keep talking about this, Olivia." She wished she could see his whole face, not her own reflection in his sunglasses.

He squeezed her hand again. "And we're here." 

Peter lived in a upscale apartment complex. They rode an elevator to the fifth floor. Then they were inside a pleasant looking apartment and he kept guiding her until she had walked up to his bed. She sat down on the edge. He kneeled in front of her and started to take off her boots. He said, "Put your backpack on the floor."

"You're ordering me around now?" She didn't sound very authoritative.

"You need sleep, Olivia." 

She put her backpack down. She laid back on the bed after he got both of her boots off. She said, "When did you start smoking so much?"

"It helps with the brain damage," he said. "Cigarette smoking has been demonstrably shown to help some people with some forms of mental illness."

"You're smoking therapeutically," she said. 

"Yes, I am," he said. "I'm leaving the room now if you want to take off your pants."

She closed her eyes and fell straight asleep. 

She woke up again some time later as Peter got in the bed next to her. She was under a thin blanket, he was lying on top of it. She opened her eyes and saw him injecting himself with something. "Are you taking heroin now," she said. 

"No," he laughed. "Sometimes on bad days this is the only way I can sleep. It's just barbiturates." This new Peter laughed about taking drugs just to fall asleep. Also, she thought, seeing her was a bad day. Peter went out like a light. 

She woke up again. She looked at the three phones on the nightstand, each in its own charger. Peter had built it, she was sure. It was 3 am. She had slept nearly 10 hours. Peter was still sleeping. 

She got out of bed and set to searching Peter's place. She started with the other bedroom, which had clearly been converted to a work room. Along one wall he had a chemistry set, more modern than Walter's. Another table held his tools; screwdrivers, soldering irons, little tiny things she'd seen him use back in Boston. He had a computer with a huge monitor. Everything looked like it was used frequently and organized and clean. In a box from Markham's Books, she found a number of German novels. It was incongruous. She flipped through one and saw formulas written along the pages. It looked like Walter's handwriting, oddly. 

She looked at the address label on the box. Peter was now Peter Bethel. And he'd lived in this apartment for at least 5 weeks. They knew he'd spent one week in various cities in Europe before disappearing completely. He must have moved to Lagos then. And stayed. She looked around his work room and thought it looked not at all mobile. He really intended to stay here.

She went into the living room. It looked like Peter had friends over, maybe to watch TV or hang out. Comfortable couch, two nice chairs, a big TV. There were bookshelves, each only half full of books. It was a random selection. It looked mostly like books Peter had picked up, read, and kept. 

There were no pictures anywhere. 

She bent down to look at one of the side tables. Peter had shown her a trick he'd pulled at the hotel, making a secret drawer. She felt around, thinking he'd done the same thing here. He had. He had a box, unlocked, that seemed to contain all of the personal items he had. Pictures of his mother. In three of them, he'd clearly carefully cut out Walter. Things she didn't understand the significance of. Two post it notes from Astrid, ones she'd left for Peter back in the lab. A napkin on which Olivia had written "i owe peter bishop one good bottle of wine" she'd signed with her full name. She remembered that night in the bar. 

The kitchen was an average kitchen. Better stocked than hers, which wasn't saying a lot. He had three or four types of beer in his refrigerator. Which reinforced her impression he was settling in, making friends, hanging out. 

She went back to the bedroom. Peter was still asleep. He hadn't moved. She went into the bathroom. He had three pill bottles, all prescriptions from the US. From the hospital. She already knew about those. There was an electric toothbrush she was afraid to touch. It bore all the marks of a Peter Bishop custom job. Beard trimmer, whitening toothpaste. 

She looked through his clothes. It looked like Peter hadn't kept any of his clothes from back in Boston. She thought briefly of one of his shirts, a blue button down she would have kept if he didn't want it. She looked at Peter again. He was only wearing short boxers. She wondered if he normally slept naked. She closed her eyes to enjoy the thought. She opened them and felt ashamed, guilty, confused at herself. 

She would have been looking for him even if he hadn't kissed her. But he had kissed her and a part of her wanted him back in her life particularly. She and Walter and Charlie and Astrid dealt with cases, solved some of them, they were able to go on without Peter. They were adjusting. Harris had argued against any resources going to finding Peter. They had never let him know what Peter had said in his letters. But Broyles wouldn't give up on Peter. And he'd somehow forced Nina to use Massive Dynamic's resources to find Peter and not let anyone else near him. So Olivia could find him.

Astrid had said her letter was just about Walter since Peter had correctly anticipated that care of Walter would fall on her. She had never let anyone else read it. Olivia wondered, if she asked, would Peter tell her?

She went back to searching his bedroom. She found his syringes and barbiturates in the very back of his closet. She finished with the bedside table he had his phones on. It was another trick secret drawer. She opened this box carefully. As she expected, he had three guns. a box of ammunition for each one. One of them was loaded, with the safety on. Under the weapons, there was his real passport, his birth certificate (which wasn't his really, she thought), three more passports and a large wad of euros. 

She put everything back. She was suddenly exhausted again. She got under the blanket and fell right back asleep.

She woke up with warm weight on her waist. Peter. She moved slightly. He grunted and moved off her. She said, "Good morning."

"Did you search my whole apartment?"

She smiled. He didn't even sound angry about it. Or disappointed. "What's with the german novels?"

"Amongst Walter's most prized possessions. From his father. I sold them a decade or so to Markham and then bought them back once I got here. Maybe someday he'll go looking for them."

"And you won't give them to him," she said. 

"I think I'll decide if he asks me," Peter said. 

She got out of bed and went into the bathroom. Peter called from the bedroom, "I'm making breakfast for us."

x

When Olivia came out from the bedroom, looking quite pretty in her t-shirt and tight jeans, he was poking around on her laptop. She said, "Are you looking for information on Walter?"

Peter said, "It's a character flaw that I still give a damn about him. One I am working on correcting."

"He loves you," Olivia said. Again.

"I don't care," Peter said. "I do care, clearly, but what I mean is, it doesn't make a difference. Nothing outweighs what he's done to me. Literally, my life is a lie, a lie Walter orchestrated and enforced. Please stop trying to convince me I should forgive him or work with him or whatever you're envisioning." He went to the kitchen and put breakfast on two plates. 

"I'm not," she said. He emptied today's medication into his water, just like Walter used to. He drank it down. She watched him closely. Then she started eating placidly. 

They ate almost companionably. She said, "What are you doing for money?"

Peter said, "I don't do cons anymore, Olivia. Nothing like being the victim of one for 23 years to lose your flavor for it."

"Peter," she said.

"I fix things and customize things. Gadgets and phones. Turns out you can get paid pretty well for that, without breaking the law or anything."

She said, "That's good." She got up and poured herself a cup of coffee. She said, "Walter really does miss you."

He would not be that guy who brought up her past to make her see his point. Would not. But was very tempted to be. He finally said, "Just, how about this, Olivia. You tell me what level of abuse and harm and suffering Walter has to be guilty of to cancel out who he is now to you. How bad does it have to be before you stop thinking I should forgive him?"

She stared at him for a long few minutes. Then she put down her mug of coffee. "You're right," she said. "You are. I must sound like my mother. She always thought I was just too angry at my stepfather. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," he said, smiling. "Now, you are completely on vacation, no missions to bring home wayward sons, let me show you this fantastic city."

After he got dressed, he took her out to walk around. She was surprisingly talkative. She told him about how Astrid was, how Sanford Harris had argued against tracking Peter down and then disappeared shortly after they had connected him to whomever was activating the other cortexiphan kids. She looked beautiful. He kept looking at her, blown away by her smile, the sun in her hair. 

They had lunch, they had dinner. He took her to a bar he liked. In the bar, she looked up at him, pressed against him by the crowd and he looked down and she kissed him. He had to stop for a split second and he saw a question in her eyes. He said, "Brain damage." They kissed for a nice long time. 

She said, "What do you mean, brain damage?"

"I remember everything. Everything that triggers memories, triggers every single one of them and I remember everything. I know I keep saying that, but literally, nearly everything from age 2 to yesterday and it's not distant, it's vivid and overwhelming. So I get headaches and I can't do anything," he said. 

"So seeing me made you have a bad day?" She frowned. "Your memories."

"I hadn't seen you in two months. Every single time ever since I met you, spent time with you, and even after, it's just too much and I can't sleep because everything is happening," he said. "I can go on about this, you're really the first person I've told."

"Otherwise you just record it all and experiments on yourself, right?"

He smiled at her. "I am my father's son. As much as it pains me."

"So you treat it with drugs and smoking?"

"Basically," he said. "Hopefully, the more we kiss the less the bad things happen."

"Is that true, or are you just hitting on me?"

"I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive," he said. He held her waist and kissed her again. He didn't need to stop.

They necked like teenagers for the whole walk home. At his door, he said, "Tomorrow we should go swimming."

"I didn't bring a suit," she said.

"I'll buy you one," he said, kissing her again, his hand already up her shirt. "Something in very bright colors."

"That's one way we could go," she said, as he pushed the door open without letting her go. 

"Were you implying we should go skinny dipping?" 

"Yes," she said. She pulled away from him and took off her shirt. "But you really want me to wear a swimsuit, so I guess we can go with that." 

"I am not smart at all," he said.

She undressed quickly and lay back on his bed, smiling. He went to the bathroom and came back with condoms which he tossed on the bed. He undressed slowly. 

Olivia looked at him with something like pity in her eyes which was not arousing in the slightest. She said, "Is this the first time you've had sex since?"

"I haven't actually had it yet," he said. He laid down next to her. "But yes. Maybe we could stop talking now." He kissed her and pulled her flush to him. 

Her warm skin against his triggered another rush. This fucking irritating life. Olivia kept moving against him even when he stopped. He started again because this was Olivia and what he wanted, had wanted since she'd confessed she'd lied about the secret file on him. She wanted him, more fool her. This was good. It was good. The sex was good. 

Olivia said, "I think that was better for me than for you. We should do it a lot more so that evens out."

"Hopefully not to the point where neither of us is enjoying it," he said. "And it was good for me, too."

"You look like you have a headache," Olivia said. 

"Isn't that usually a line to avoid coitus, rather than an observation post-coitus?"

She kissed him. It was much better than good and all the way to fantastic. 

Like the kissing, the sex was better the second time, in the morning, and even better the third time, after they had breakfast in the morning. At some point he convinced her to put some clothes on by telling her of all the restaurants they hadn't been to yet. 

"Do you want to talk about the brain damage?" She touched his hand across the table. "You said you hadn't talked to anyone."

"No, I do not. Not at all. I'd like to avoid seeing that look in your eyes again," he said. "Let's talk about you, that's fun."

She stared him down and then said, "Let's talk about Lagos."

She stayed ten days. "I know you have more vacation," he said.

"I have to go back," she said. 

"Because they can't go on without you," Peter said. "I used to think that about myself."

"You weren't wrong," Olivia said. "We've accommodated, but that doesn't mean we're doing as well as we could be."

"It's not my problem," he said. He meant it. "If you stayed, I would happily support you until you got a job. Which you do many different jobs, you know."

"Once I got a job, you'd cut me off," she said. 

"I want a sugar mama, what can I say?" 

He was standing with her outside his apartment, waiting for her cab. She said, "Would you shave off the beard for me?"

"You would stay for that?"

"No, but I would think about it really hard," she said. The cab came, she kissed him goodbye, and he watched the car speed off. She called him, when she landed in New York. She said, "I just wanted to check on the beard again."


	2. Chapter 2

Charlie, Astrid, and Broyles all told her she looked like she'd been in the sun when she got back. Rachel said, "How many times did you get laid?"

"He almost talked me into staying," Olivia said, unpacking her bag.

"So not only lots of sex, but very good sex," Rachel said. "Is that new underwear?"

"It's a new swimsuit," Olivia said. 

"You bought yourself a pretty bikini," Rachel said. 

"He bought it," Olivia said. 

"Did you wear it for very long? Please, I need to know one of us actually has a decent sex life." Rachel grinned and twirled the bikini bottom on her finger.

"I did have," Olivia said. "He's not coming back here and I have no idea when I will be able to go back there."

She called him, though, that Friday. She told him about finding Nicholas Boone and having to kill his wife when he and Walter couldn't find the cure in time. "I thought, just once, we could save someone, you know?"

He took a deep breath. She said, "Are you smoking?"

"Right now? Yes," he said. "It's 6 am here, you just woke me up. I'm not complaining, I very much enjoy hearing from you but I don't feel like walking to the kitchen to get my medication. And, Olivia, you did try. You tried."

She kept calling him. It occurred to her that these were the conversations they used to have after a case, or driving somewhere back when he was almost her partner. 

She went out in the field with Charlie and Astrid and she went back to Walter's lab and watched Walter work very hard to be focused. He was always sad. She thought about how much Peter hated him every time she saw him. 

Charlie said, "Are you calling your long-distance boyfriend?"

"If you mean Peter, yes, I was going to call him," she said. "You just called Sonia."

"It's a long drive from New York City to Boston, and we do it all the time," he said. 

"We do," Olivia said. Peter picked up and she said, "Hey, how are you?" It felt weird, though, talking to him with Charlie in the car as well. She only spoke to him for a few minutes. 

Charlie said, "You two talk a lot."

"We do," she said.

"Do you think he'll ever come back?"

"To the US? Maybe. To working for the FBI or with his father? Not likely," she said. 

"He was helpful," Charlie said.

She started calling him on an almost regular schedule. Right before she went to bed, or after she woke up. "I can hear you flinch through the line every time I mention Walter," she said, one night. 

"I am not a fan of his, very true," Peter said. "But I like to hear about your day. So feel free to keep talking about him or whatever you want. I appreciate that you feel comfortable talking to me."

"If you keep talking like that, I won't keep calling," she said. 

Peter said to her one night, "You know you deserve better than me. You should have someone there when you get home, making your dinner, pouring wine or something stronger."

"I should date a 50s housewife? I'm not really turned on by Donna Reed," she said.

"Really? She is very attractive. But yes, you deserve someone to take care of you, not just listen to you on the phone."

"You'd be bored," she said. 

"Not in the slightest. I've discovered how much I enjoy inactivity, reading a good book. But I'm here and also not that much of a catch with the brain damage."

"You could be here," she said. "Move to New York City, work your very legal jobs, make me dinner when I'm there which would practically be three nights a week." She started to love the idea as she said it but she didn't think Peter would.

"You make it sound very tempting. Though I really like having an entire ocean between me and Walter and Nina," he said. He sounded like he was almost considering it. 

"You don't have to see them. Walter, Nina, Broyles, they've all known you were in Lagos for the last month and none of them have bothered you, right?"

"I don't think it would last if I were closer," he said. 

"Okay," she said. "It wasn't my greatest idea."

She missed him. They'd stopped Jones and begun to dismantle some of ZFT but every day there were new threats. William Bell had told Nina that Walter on the other side was the Secretary of Defense, and a harder, frightening man. Walter said they used to call him Walternate. They hunted for shapeshifters and tried to figure out what the Secretary was after. 

It couldn't just be Peter, she thought. They could have gotten Peter at any time, assuming they had a way to get back to their side. She didn't trust William Bell at all. She didn't trust Nina. 

Charlie, Astrid, Broyles, even Walter, they were the ones she believed with no agenda. Everyone else she had to figure out. 

She trusted Peter completely. 

She hung up with Peter on a Saturday morning and saw from her phone they'd talked for two hours. They had scheduled another call in 10 hours, they were both going to watch ET at the same time. "I am almost positive the ending is completely different on the other side," Peter had said. She looked at her call logs. She has talked to Peter every day for at least 30 minutes. She didn't even remember what they'd talked about at least three of those times. 

She wanted to call him back and point that out to him. She shook her head and reached for a case file. Somewhere she was going to find an answer, she was going to figure out what Bell and Nina and the other Walter were playing at. 

Walter said to her, "Maybe, maybe, you were able to cross over before."

Olivia could hear how Peter would have yelled at her. But he was in Nigeria. Olivia said, "What do you want to do, Walter?"

It wasn't the tank, at least. Or not the way she'd been in the tank when John was in her head. Walter said, "You already had cortexiphan again when we were in Jacksonville, and I don't think we'd want to do that again. Though maybe."

They started small. She stared at things and tried to make them move. Walter kept talking about perception and emotions. She missed Peter explaining or at least commenting sarcastically on Walter's speeches. 

Walter showed her a video of a woman he'd given an obscene amount of drugs who talked about soldiers from the other side. The shapeshifters. Walter thought with work, maybe Olivia would be able to see them. 

"So you want me to make things move with my mind and turn off lights and also be able to see if people or things are from the other side. That seems simple," Olivia said. Astrid smiled, at least.

Mostly, it was just exhausting. She felt the weight of expectations and her own inability to do the things he wanted. 

Her first small successes were always right after she'd talked to Peter. After talking to him, she once managed to shut down all the lights in the lab. Another time, she saw a glimmer on a coin Walter had in his bedroom. Astrid brought it up to her, but Olivia suspected Walter had noticed first and sent Astrid as his emissary. 

x

When Peter called Olivia, she was actually still in New York City. "I just got out of Massive Dynamic," she said. "Another new phone?"

"Yes, another new phone. I ditched both of the Bethel ones. New name, new phones, new city…"

"You moved," she said. He couldn't quite gage her tone. Hopeful, depressed? 

"I did, indeed. I'm in Brooklyn," he said. 

"Please don't say you're kidding," she said. And that tone was joy, he was sure. 

"Not kidding. Come over now," he said. He gave her the address. He heard her mapping it out on the GPS. "I'll wait for you outside."

She got out of the SUV looking drained and exhausted. He could see the fading bruise on her forehead. She was smiling, though. She sat down next to him and kissed him. She kissed him and he didn't feel overwhelmed. Not until she pulled away and then he wanted to vomit. He didn't. He smiled back at her. "It's really nice to see you," he said. 

"Why did you move here? When did you move here? I talked to you yesterday," she said. She leaned against him, making no move to stand up. 

"I made up my mind to do it when Charlie called me on your phone to tell me you were in the hospital," he said. He'd started packing while Charlie explained what had happened. 

"Last week," she said. "Last week, really?"

"You were shot," he said. 

"I was only there overnight," Olivia said. "It was nothing."

"Also, according to Charlie, you were worn down to the bone because you and Walter have been spending a lot of time trying to work and refine your cortexiphan abilities."

"You and Charlie talked for a while," she said. She was still leaning into him despite the almost anger in her voice. 

"We did," he said. He took out the cigarette he'd palmed as he left the apartment and lit it. Olivia scrunched up her face but still didn't move. Peter said, "I know I can't stop you doing reckless and dangerous things, but it turns out I really can't stand it when you do reckless and dangerous things and I'm so far away from you."

She snuggled closer. "So," he said. "I moved here, rented this place, and now you're up to speed."

"Did you already tell Charlie?"

"I told no one. Just you," Peter said. 

He finished his cigarette and led her inside. Just like back in Lagos, she basically went to sleep. 

When he woke up, she was on her side, looking at him. 

He got up and took his medication and started coffee. Then he got back in the bed next to her. She said, "I missed you."

"I missed you, too," he said. "So tell me about whatever fucked up thing Walter has you doing."

"We could have sex instead," she said. 

"Then we talk after," he said. She nodded. 

She pushed the covers away and got on top of him, already reaching for his dick. He said, "I forgot to buy condoms, fuck."

"I am on the pill," she said smiling down at him. "Do you have any STDs?"

"Nope," he said. "Ah, nope." Olivia Dunham was a remarkable, wonderful skilled woman who was absolutely fantastic at giving handjobs. He flinched for a split second against the rush of memories, but it passed quickly. "Hey, hey, how about you?"

"No STDs either," she said. 

"Good talk," he said. She let go of his dick and he actually whimpered. Then she shifted to sitting up and lowered herself onto him. "You really missed me," he said. He thrust up and up, squeezing her hips to pull her down. He watched her touching herself while he fucked her and he wished it could go on forever. She came loudly, tight on his dick and watching her, feeling it, was enough for him to come, too. 

"I really missed you," she said. "We should get cleaned up."

One shower later they were back on the bed. He didn't bother getting dressed and neither did she. It was shaping up to be the best morning he'd had in a while. "You do not make great coffee," Olivia said. 

"It's a coffee machine, I put the grounds in, I press brew," he said. 

She shrugged. He said, "And back to Walter, please."

"It's nothing, Peter. It's staring at machines and concentrating --"

"And drugs, I assume, and floating in a tank that could kill you," he said. He knew his father.

"Yes," she said. "Not the tank, though, he won't put me back in there. Well, not with the same sensors and things. He uses it as a sensory deprivation tank, that's all. But there are drugs, his usual hallucinogens. It's not that bad. It's no more tiring than a really shitty case." Olivia stretched, a sight that went straight to his dick. "See, one good night's sleep and I'm back to normal."

"Is any of it working? Why is this incumbent on you - Nina and Bell know more than they're telling, they have to have a link to the other side," Peter said. 

"I don't think we're going to get more out of Nina," Olivia said. "She always insists she's told us everything she knows, right before we find out more things she's lied to us about. And yes, it's working. I can see objects from the other side, I have made objects float in the air, and last week, I went to the other side for a few seconds --"

"Seriously?" She was always so amazing. 

"Yes," Olivia said. She looked at him, contemplating. "Don't you want to go to the other side? Back where you said you belonged?"

It was his turn to shrug. "I genuinely don't know, Olivia. I don't know. So, no, I don't know if I want to go home. It's been 23 years. What am I gonna do, ride in a zeppelin, get a job working for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and, again, those are just a few things that were so different. The history I learned reading in my sick bed was different from the history I learned in 5th grade."

"How old were you in the 5th grade?"

"8," he said. "They stopped skipping me forward after that. On the other side, I never went to school but I am honestly not sure if Walter's son ever did before he died."

"You were sick for a long time," Olivia said. "Both of you, I guess."

"When I was five, my father arranged for me to see Return of the Jedi at a special screening at George Lucas's ranch. My father had designed an actual Star Wars system," he said. "I was sitting on my mother's lap and I knew I was so sick I was going to die. Because that's how you get special screenings and Carrie Fisher passing you candy."

Olivia said, "Carrie Fisher was there? Also, maybe you got to go the screening because of your father, not because you were sick."

She laid back down next to him. He looked over at her and said, "No, every version of Walter I've known was prone to working over parenting. I mean, my actual father was more focused than Walter, less prone to taking a lot of drugs and sleeping with women who weren't his wife. But I still didn't see him that much."

"Was Return of the Jedi different?"

"Yes, actually. One more thing Walter lied to me about. There were always ewoks in the movie, Peter, you were very sick," he said. 

"I'm sorry," she said. 

"Did you really want me to air my whole ambivalence about life and where I belong to you? We could be having sex right now," he said. "Again. As many times as possible before you get called back to work."

She smiled at him and pulled him on top of her. He said, "Are you really turned on by the idea of Return of Jedi with no ewoks?"

"No," she said. 

By four in the afternoon, they were sitting on his bed, naked, watching the Star Wars trilogy while he narrated the differences. She said, "I can't believe no one's called me." She looked down at her phone. "It's Wednesday, has no one noticed I didn't show up for work?"

"Maybe everyone knows you deserve a day off," he said. "Should we order pizza? I missed pizza. It's just different in Lagos."

Olivia called someone on her phone. He heard her talking to Broyles so he got out his own phone and ordered pizza online. Olivia was done with her call. She said, "Broyles and Charlie noticed I didn't come into work. Then they tracked my phone, saw I was here, and decided to let me have the day."

"They knew you were here with me?"

"I am at the apartment being rented by one Peter Bethlehem. You picked a new name," she said.

"It's a theme," he said. 

xx

"I feel like my hair still smells like smoke," Olivia said to Astrid.

"Right, from all that time you spent with your boyfriend last night," Astrid said, grinning. "Two weeks you've had that smile on your face, it's nice."

"I didn't mean it like that," Olivia said. 

"It's okay if you did," Astrid said. "Nothing wrong with having someone in your life." Astrid leaned in. "And you don't smell at all like smoke."

"It is nice to have a place to stay when we're in New York, which is all the time," Olivia said. "Though I still have to make that drive or take the train, I just do it in the morning."

"Yeah, you get to wake up all warm and snuggly and then make the trip," Astrid said. 

They had stopped in front of the lab. Olivia opened the door and was relieved to see Walter wasn't in the main room where he might have heard. Walter came in from the back where he'd set up his bedroom now. 

"Hello, Olivia," Walter said. He said, shy, "Did you have a nice evening?"

Olivia smiled at him. "I did. Good company, good dinner."

Walter nodded like a bobblehead. "Good to hear," he said. "Oh, I had an idea about our project. Maybe later we can do that."

Walter, she thought, knew very well Peter had moved back to the US. He knew Olivia was seeing him. He never mentioned it to Olivia, on purpose. It was occasionally a little awkward how Walter would pull Astrid away and whisper something in her ear. Then Astrid would come over and ask Olivia if Peter was getting enough sleep. 

Having Peter there on a regular basis was improving her abilities. Walter even said, "I am glad, I am very glad that being happy is making you better at all this. I didn't like scaring you. I hope you know that, Olivia."

One day she went to the other Walter's abandoned lab in Harvard and stayed for ten minutes. She was completely exhausted for the rest of the day, drained. She took the train to New York City and Peter picked her up. He looked furious at her sleepy face, but he didn't say anything.

A week later, she finally connected to Rachel. "So to be clear," Rachel said, "He was never moving back to the US except you got hurt and therefore he moved here. For you."

"Basically," Olivia said. 

"Do you bring that up all the time? I think I would. At least every time we had a fight," Rachel said. 

"I don't bring it up at all," Olivia said. 

"Because you never fight," Rachel said.

"We fight all the time, we had a fight last night."

"Who's prettier? I think he might win," Rachel said.

"You haven't seen the beard," Olivia said. "But no, we were," Olivia wondered how to translate it exactly. "I feel like he used to work for us, you know, he worked to help people. And now that he's cut Walter out of his life, he's cut that part out, too. He doesn't want to contribute."

"Not everyone spent their whole lives wanting to be FBI," Rachel said. "It's not a job for everyone."

"It is a job for him," Olivia said. "I think so. He threw the baby out with the bathwater."

"Is his father the bathwater here? The guy you still work with?"

"Walter didn't raise me," Olivia said. "I don't talk to Peter about that."

"Anymore," Rachel said, laughing. "I hear that anymore."

"It's not my place to judge," Olivia said. She hadn't really explained what happened to Rachel, but she'd tried to give her some idea. 

"It's been a month since he moved back," Charlie said, as they drove to some horrific crime scene. "How is he paying for that place in Brooklyn? It doesn't look cheap."

Olivia took out her phone and cued a video. When they had pulled over for a bathroom break, she showed it to him. Charlie said, "What is that?"

"It's an art installation. Some guy had the idea for the machine and he paid Peter to make it. Someone else painted all the dancers but the mechanics are all Peter." They both watched for a moment as the little dancers rose and fell on their spokes. "All the parts were paid for and then he got fifteen thousand for it."

"Dollars?"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "That's four months rent paid for. He's not doing anything shady these days." 

"He gets offered a lot of installations?"

"He gets offered a lot of things," Olivia said. 

Two weeks later, she was driving Peter back to his apartment. 

Olivia knew she wasn't surprised Peter had done something risky and stupid. She was surprised he had done it for her. She knew he would be insulted if she told him that. 

She looked over at him, as curled into a ball as he could at his height and with his seatbelt on. She said, "I brought your syringe. Would that help?"

He shook his head. She kept driving. She got to his apartment and walked him in. He was heavy on her arm and shoulder and breathing heavily. When they got inside, he went straight for the bed. He carefully set aside his messenger bag before reaching for her hand. "I'll take the downers now, please," he muttered. 

She pulled the one she'd loaded up (she'd seen him do it twice, that was enough for her to figure it out) from her jacket and put it in his hand. He said, "Could you please do it?"

"Okay," she said. She had spent enough time in Walter's lab to know how to give an injection. It took him longer than usual to pass out but he finally did. 

Six hours later, he started to come to. She handed him a glass of water and the four pills she'd seen him take every morning. He said, "Actually, I could use a double."

She got out of bed and said, "I'm assuming your pills, not the water."

He swallowed the additional four pills she'd brought him. She sat crosslegged on the bed, hand on his thigh. "So, last night you called me to pick you up."

"Sorry about that," he said. "My plan mostly worked."

"Tell me about the plan," she said. 

"I started this plan at the same time I moved here," he said. Olivia frowned. "The rest of you might pretend you don't trust Nina, but I actually don't trust her. Or William Bell."

"So you broke into Massive Dynamic," Olivia said. She didn't add successfully, though she had yet to get a call about the break in. Maybe Broyles would just send Charlie to arrest Peter and not tell her at all. Charlie would call her, though, she thought.

Peter smiled wanly. He said, "It was a really good break in. I called in a lot of favors, you know. And spent a lot of money. Which was absolutely worth it."

"What did you get? Are the police coming for us?"

"They'd be coming for me, not us," he said, with another smile. "And I got a lot. Part of the break in pre-planning was finding out where Massive Dynamic had their super secret files hidden. Not surprisingly, they're all paper. I only took two actual files, yours and mine, the rest I scanned. I think there's enough in there to make sure Broyles gets everything he can from Nina." 

"Which part of the break-in had you nearly catatonic?" She was already upset, at Peter, at the thought of a file on her. 

"I went into Bell's office. There was something in there, I don't know what - some kind of sound or smell, something, after ten minutes, I could barely walk. He didn't have anything in his office anyway. Or his safe," Peter said. He flinched again, like the mention of the office was bringing him back to last night's pain. 

"You know that was a really stupid thing to do," Olivia said. 

"Actually, I put a lot of planning into it, to make sure it wasn't stupid," Peter said. He closed his eyes. "If it weren't for whatever was in that office, I would have made it out with no one knowing."

"They had a file on me?"

"Yeah," he said. He reached for her hand. "The cortexiphan kids. It has extensive notes from Bell and Walter."

"And they had a file on you," she said. 

"Of course they did," he said. He was quiet for a minute. "I think I need to go back to sleep."

"You need drugs?" She started to get up.

"No, I'm just going to sleep. Your file is in my bag," he said. 

She didn't go for it immediately. She watched him sleep. He didn't look peaceful. 

There were two paper files in Peter's messenger bag. She didn't look through his. If he told her it was okay, she would, she decided. She did look through hers. There was very little new information. She hadn't realized Bell had arranged her scholarship to the boarding school she attended. Everything else she knew, though it was unbelievably infuriating to see how Bell and Walter had referred to her, how clinical it all was. The pictures were scary because she didn't remember any of them being taken. What had happened to her memory?

Peter made an unhappy sound but he was still asleep. She rubbed his back which she hoped was soothing. Peter's messenger bag also had what she assumed was a hand held scanner, three thumb drives, the burner phone he'd texted her from, and an old book. The First People, she read. She flipped through it but it looked meaningless. Actually, it looked ridiculous. 

She was waiting for Broyles to call. She took a deep breath and called him. Broyles said, "Dunham."

"Hi, I, I would like to take a sick day."

"Are you okay?" He sounded concerned and confused.

"I'm okay, it's just, Peter. Peter is sick and I want to just make sure he's okay."

"Is he okay?" 

She realized she had never told Broyles about Peter's issues. She hadn't told anyone. 

She'd left Broyles hanging for a second. She said, "Peter has brain damage. From the attack. He has these, um, it's all the memories. He said it's like a head rush when you get up too quickly, except with nausea and extremely vivid hallucinations. It's usually just a tiny stutter, but sometimes it's really bad. It was really bad last night."

"He's had this for 6 months? I suppose there's no chance he'd talk to Dr. Bishop about it," Broyles said. Olivia forgot that he genuinely seemed to like Peter.

"According to Peter, I am only allowed to speak to Walter about him if he's dead, or he's in the kind of situation where he would die unless Walter was consulted," Olivia said. "But if something comes up, you can call me."

"I'll sent Agent Farnsworth and Agent Francis first. We'll call you if they need the backup," Broyles said. 

"So nothing's come up today?" Olivia remembered she was concerned that someone would come for Peter. She was sure now Broyles didn't know about the break in yet. 

"No. Did you think something would come up?"

"No, sir," she said. She said goodbye and stretched out next to Peter. 

He opened his eyes. "I meant that about Walter, by the way. Don't you call him."

"How are you now?"

Peter frowned and closed his eyes. He rolled on his back. "I don't know. It almost feels worse. I can't do this if it gets worse." His voice broke. 

She swallowed hard and looked away. She said, "If it gets worse, I will call Walter."

"No, you won't. I'll go to the hospital," Peter said. He had opened his eyes and he guided her chin back to looking at him. He was in pain. She'd never seen him so clearly unable to function, not since he'd left Boston. If he didn't get better, she was going to call Walter. 

"I'll be fine. Can you get my barbiturates?" 

She got up and got another syringe and vial. He got up and said, "And I'm going to use the bathroom before I knock myself out."

"Do you need me to do the injection again?"

"I've got it," he said. "I swear to God, if you call Walter when I'm out --" 

"I won't," she said. "If you don't feel better when you wake up, though, I make no promises."

He'd injected himself. He glared at her, but he passed out. 

xx

When Peter woke up, Olivia was gone. She'd left a note: call me by midnight or i call Walter. He almost laughed. He called her right after he'd taken his pills. "I'm fine," he said. 

"Are you feeling better?" 

"I am, thank you. I think I just needed a break," he said. "A double dose of barbiturates and I'm all better."

"I always meant to ask you, why do you inject it instead of pills?"

"Pills take too long," he said. He was transferring the scans of Massive Dynamic's files from the scanner and drives to his computer. Then he would organize them and hand them over to Broyles. "How was your day?"

"Well, we finally found Sanford Harris."

"Where had he disappeared to?"

"We're not sure yet, but we found him today in pieces." Olivia sounded sanguine about it. Peter was not surprised. 

He said, "Was it gross or incredibly gross?"

"We didn't find his head, but the rest of him was just dismembered. So not even close to horrific," she said. 

"You are so jaded."

"I'm in Boston tonight and tomorrow morning, but I might be able to have dinner with you tomorrow night. Unless something comes up," she said. 

"I'll be here," he said. 

Two days later Peter waited at a coffee place two blocks from his apartment. He'd specifically chosen an outside table, taken a double dose of his pills, and lit a cigarette. He still couldn't see from the initial rush and the pain when he first saw Broyles. When Peter was coherent and focused again, Broyles was already sitting across from him. 

"Are you okay?"

"Peachy," Peter said. "It's always a little painful when I see someone for the first time in a while."

Broyles looked slightly less grim. He said, "You called." It was almost a hello, how are you?

"I did," Peter said. He pushed a thick envelope on the table towards Broyles. "I managed to acquire certain files. From Massive Dynamic. Nina Sharp and William Bell have been conducting experiments that are nearly as awful as the ones my father did back in the 80s. Right on the top there, you can see that they've cloned a boy, had him slash them raised by a number of their employees, all waiting to see if he develops mind control. That's just the one on top. There's a drive in there that has another 40 files that will give you all the leverage you need over Nina. Oh, if you look at my file, you'll see print outs of Bell speculating on what I was injected with and wondering if he could replicate it. So he's getting news from our side."

Now Broyles looked furious. "You did not acquire these legally, did you?"

"Do you care? I don't work for you. I'm not an agent of yours or a consultant. I am someone who wants to make sure Olivia doesn't get injured or killed from being put in the middle of William Bell's schemes," Peter said. 

"But you didn't tell Agent Dunham," Broyles stated.

"She had no idea until after I acquired the files. Hers isn't in there, by the way. The rest of the cortexiphan subjects are. Nina knows where nearly every single one of them are."

Peter looked at Broyles and thought he would not want to be Nina at that moment.

When he got home, Olivia was sitting on his bed. She said, "You met with my boss."

"We just did," he said. "Did he text you five seconds ago?"

"More like a minute," she said. "How'd it go?"

"Surprising," Peter said. He took off his shoes and sat down next to her. He said, "Broyles offered to be my go between if I wanted help from Walter with my brain."

Olivia frowned. "I could do that."

"You are already too much in the middle of me and Walter." 

He watched her process. She said finally, "He's saved your life. Twice."

He shook his head and laid back on the bed. "So what?"

Olivia said, "I know, I get that you think what he did to you outweighs everything else he's done --"

"But what?" He rubbed his eyes. 

She laid down next to him. Her blazer would be wrinkled. She said, "But nothing. Sorry. And I think I would actually like to decide when I'm too much in the middle in the future."

"Okay," he said, watching her. 

"I'd like it if you quit smoking," she said, smiling. "I do hope Walter can help."

"I hope he can help without me having to ever see him in person," Peter said. "While we're wishing I hope Broyles gets to the bottom of what Bell and Nina Sharp are up to and you don't have to --"

"These abilities, Peter, I have a responsibility," she said. He did not point out how rote that sounded. He knew she believed it completely, he just wondered how much that was Walter and Bell's childhood inculcation. 

"I was going to say I hope you don't have to work blindly."

"Were you?" She took off her blazer and let it fall on the floor. 

"Absolutely," Peter said. "And you will find who killed Harris and lock them up instead of thanking them and we'll have Charlie and Sonia over for dinner --"

"We will?" She looked skeptical. 

"You don't want to?"

"Are we doing couples dates now?" She started unbuttoning her shirt. 

"We've been together for a while," he said. "I don't know, isn't that what people do?"

She almost laughed. "We're not people like that. Also, we've been together all of four months or two months depending on how you count it." She looked over at him while she removed her shirt. "Do you really want do that?"

He'd seen that flash as she realized that four months was actually a longer time than he usually managed. Then he got distracted as Olivia removed her bra. "Should I answer that," he said, "Or did you have other plans for right now?"

She was already unbuttoning and shoving down her pants. She said, "Plans you're overdressed for."


End file.
